Abdul Salam Azimi

{{Short description|Chief Justice of Afghanistan (in office 2006-14)}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Abdul Salam Azimi

| image = Abdul Salam Azimi in November 2009.jpg

| office = Chief Justice of Afghanistan

| term_start = 5 August 2006

| term_end = 23 October 2014

| president = Hamid Karzai

| predecessor = Fazal Hadi Shinwari

| successor = Sayed Yousuf Halim

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1936}}

| birth_place = Farah Province

| citizenship = Afghanistan

| occupation =

| alma_mater = Al-Azhar University

}}

Abdul Salam Azimi (born 1936 in Farah Province) is an Afghan former judge who was the Chief Justice of Afghanistan and, as such, the head of the Afghan Supreme Court from August 2006{{cite web | url=https://www.afghan-bios.info/index.php?option=com_afghanbios&id=252&task=view&total=5017&start=712&Itemid=2 | title=Database }} to October 2014, when he resigned his position.{{cite news|title=Acting Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi resigns|author=Khaama Press|date=2014-10-23|publisher=Khaama Press|url=http://www.khaama.com/acting-chief-justice-abdul-salam-azimi-resigns-6867}}

A former professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha (UNO) in the United States, Azimi served as legal advisor to Afghan President Hamid Karzai and assisted with writing the 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan. He is an ethnic Pashtun of the Alizai tribe. Prior to the Soviet Invasion of 1979, Azimi and his family resided in the Kabul province of Afghanistan and were forced to flee the country in 1989 after the fall of the Communist regime and the resulting civil war. Azimi has three daughters and three sons, one being Abdul Ghafar Azimi who studied in Omaha, Nebraska and graduated from the UNO, and another is Hanan Azimi, who also studied at the UNO, and is a respected teacher in the Omaha area. As chief justice, Azimi replaced Faisal Ahmad Shinwari, a conservative Islamic cleric who lacked higher education. Azimi, by contrast, gained a reputation as a fair-minded moderate active in upholding the rule of law and improving the country's dilapidated legal system.{{cite news|title=At the Supreme Court, an unlikely new hero|author=Kim Barker|date=2007-01-21|publisher=Chicago Tribune|url=http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0701210351jan21,0,7944559.story}}